"Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the broken cart wheel, or hide-and-seek by moonlight, that I wish to speak here, but of another diversion next day, and of a mysterious stranger who arrived at nick of time to participate ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... their chums, as well as many other cadets and boys and girls from that vicinity, had been using the hill for a couple of hours when the race between the Blue Moon and the Yellow Streak was proposed by Nick Carncross, the ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... Abnegation Mings as you shall hear tell of on the Main from Panama to St. Catherine's, aye, by the horns of Nick there be none of all the coastwise Brotherhood quicker or readier when there's aught i' the wind than Abnegation, and you can lay to that, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... call real cleverness," said the Scarecrow, approvingly. "I wonder my brains did not think of that long ago! Get to work, my dear Nick, and fit the ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... turning in my tracks and addressing a small brown-leafed beech. "What! little Hyla, are you still out? You! with a snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?" And then from within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, Peep, peep, peep! small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and stirring it as three small pebbles might ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... last finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation of London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled back—doubtless more German than its master—he said, as he lifted up his carpet-bag, "I must be off—tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in time to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and snug; thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don't know Fan—make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man, we shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as you call it, where I took ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is his own father; and the old woman is his grandmother. The robber chief's father was known as "Nick, the Highwayman," a terrible person whose name made everybody's heart beat fast fifty ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... quiet! What spirits were his, what wit and what whim, Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb! Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball, Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all! In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old Nick, But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, As often we wish'd to have Dick back again. Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men ...
— English Satires • Various
... grove the garden and the spring. The horseman was Lanpher, manager of the 88 ranch. He was followed by another rider, a lean, swarthy individual with a smooth-shaven, saturnine face. Racey knew the latter by sight and reputation. The man was one Skeel and rejoiced in the nick-name of "Alicran." The furtive scorpion whose sting is death is not indigenous to the territory, but Mr. Skeel had gained the appellation in New Mexico, a region where the tail-bearing insect may be found, and when the man left the Border for the Border's good the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... all her husband could eat and couldn't eat; she called her children 'little tots,' and said she couldn't get so much as a 'serviette' washed in the house. I thought nobody talked of serviettes outside Wells and Arnold Bennett. Mrs. Duff-Whalley rescued me in the nick of time before I could do anything desperate, and then she cross-examined me as to my reasons ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... To the very root of the family tree Were a task as rash as ridiculous: Through antediluvian mists as thick As London fog such a line to pick Were enough, in truth, to puzzle old Nick, Not to name Sir ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... for Britain's enemies would be on her back while she would have to fight in South Africa. The result of that would mean a shattered, humiliated land, with a people in pawn to the will of a rising power across the northern sea. That it had been prevented just in the nick of time was due to Jasmine, his fate, the power that must beat in his veins till the end ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the men in the shadows moved, and spoke in a repressive tone. "Shut up, Nick! This is ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... whined at the bear. The limb cracked, and Dave ceased chopping and shouted "Look out!" We shouldered arms. The dog was in a hurry. He sprang in the air and landed on his back. But Dave had to make another nick or two. Then with a loud crack the limb parted and came sweeping down. The dog jumped to meet it. He met it, and was laid out on the grass. The bear scrambled to its feet and made off towards Bill. Bill squealed and fell backwards over a log. Dad rushed in and kicked the bear up like a ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... parts of the Winkie Country are full of happy and contented people who are ruled by a tin Emperor named Nick Chopper, who in turn is a subject of the beautiful girl Ruler, Ozma of Oz. But not all of the Winkie Country is fully settled. At the east, which part lies nearest the Emerald City, there are beautiful farmhouses ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... have more or less of it shoved onto us as a side-line. You listen to me! Batson Reeves was the man that lied to the girl I was engaged to thirty years ago, and broke us up and kept us apart till I came back here and licked him, and saved her just in the nick of time. What do you think of a man of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... got to loggerheads one night for no reason apparently, save that each had a high reputation for courage, and neither could find a worthier antagonist. In the nick of time Rablay appeared; he seemed to understand the situation at ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... seem to have a faculty for always turning up when I want you," she replied. "I was just thinking how often you had appeared in the very nick of time. Seriously"—her voice took on a graver note—"I feel I can't ever repay you.—you've come to ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... you in the nick of time," said the old thane courteously. "From your dress I take it that you are one of the Frankish paladins we were on the way to see. But do they always talk good Wessex at the court ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... you," said Betty gleefully, noting with pride how splendid he looked in his uniform. "You don't seem at all glad to see us. Mrs. Watson," remembering her manners in the nick of time, "this is a friend of ours from Deepdale—Allen Washburn. He ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... Lavinia, bundled up as usual, and the amiable Amanda, both flushed with constant pokings and thrashings of their steed. A venerable ass, so like an old whity-brown hair trunk as to his body, and Nick Bottom's mask as to his head, that he was a constant source of mirth to the ladies. Mild and venerable as he looked, however, he was a most incorrigible beast, and it took two immortal souls, and four arms, to ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... "I guess we came just in the nick of time. You were about at the last ditch, but from all the signs you must have put up a ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... for one would have thought it the least attractive of employments to one of his volatile disposition. For some time indeed he had supported himself comfortably in this way; for through friends of his family he had had good introductions, and, although he wasted a good deal of money in buying nick-nacks that promised to be useful and seldom were, he had no objectionable habits except inordinate smoking. But it happened that a pupil—a girl of imaginative disposition, I presume—fell so much in love with him that she ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... who fought so stoutly with him for the possession of Hougomont. The Colonel, fowling-piece in hand, was watching the struggle, and seeing that Lord Saltoun was getting the worst of it awaited his opportunity when the big salmon's tail was in the air after a spring, and, firing in the nick of time, cut the fish's spine just above the tail, hardly marking it elsewhere. The Colonel occasionally fished the river with cross-lines, which are still legal although their use is now considered rather ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... voices here explained to Sir Richard how Number 666 had come up in the nick of time to receive the ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... she beholds him under the door-lintel, the lamp falls from her hands, the kerosene blazes on the floor, and the straw mat takes fire. They do not heed this—they do not see it—they are on the wings of an ecstatic embrace. And the father, chancing to arrive in the nick of time, with a curse and a cuff, saves them and his house from ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... laugh. Oh, I bet we have! Ma an' me can stand it, but, mister, I don't want folks to laugh at my children, and there's other things I don't want to happen to 'em. Buddy's a wild hoss and he's got a streak of the Old Nick in him. And Allie ain't broke no better 'n him. I got a feelin' there may be trouble ahead, an'—sometimes I 'most wish we'd never ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the nick of time. All the pent-up spleen and hatred of Peigan Charley had culminated in an irresistible desire. He had seized a rifle from one of the camp Indians standing by, and had flung himself on the banked up defences. Even as his boss shouted, ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... up some small stones, which lay littered in front of the cave, and commenced a fusillade. It had such good results, that a few seconds later, the three horses were plunging off along the bottom of the gully as if Old Nick himself ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... Senator Jerry Clemens, who had early been a Union man, but later was disposed to accept secession as an accomplished fact; then, on the Union occupancy of Northern Alabama, he boldly advocated a restoration of the State to the Union. Colonel Nick Davis, likewise an original Union man, at first opposed secession; then, after Bull run, accepted a colonelcy in an Alabama rebel regiment; then declined it, and thereafter tried to remain loyal to the Union. The conduct of such strong men ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... near locoes him, it's so clost an' turrible. He boils out on the floor an' begins to claw on his duds, allowin', bein' he's only half awake that a-way, that it's a passel of them murderin' Clay Whigs who's come to crawl his hump for shore. But she's a false alarm. It's only a Dom'nick rooster who's been perched all night on my grandfather's wrist where his arm sticks outen bed, an' who's done crowed a whole lot, as is his habit when he glints the comin' day. It's them sort o' things that sends a shudder ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... midday to objects below; When, what to my wondering eyes should appear But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick! More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... for an instant into a shower of diamonds; then down it fell, down, down! As in its descent it passed the bridge on which we stood, the shadows of our two figures rushed up the opposite wall, like a pair of demons scared out of their abode by the hissing flame; and Nick, the guide, as he leaned over, looking downward after it,—every one of the innumerable wrinkles in his black face made more distinct, with his white beard and mustache, and the whites of his eyes seeming to glow in the blue elfish light,—was a caricature, half grotesque, almost terrible, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... those lazy, easy, honest men have a way of popping up just at the nick of time. They never need hurry; all things wait for them. Why, don't you remember that on the very day Mrs. Hopkinson and I and you got the President to sign that patent, that very day one of them d—n fellows turns up from San Francisco ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... your wife, I'd be along with you those nights, Christy Mahon, the way you'd see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or coining funny nick-names ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... evidence throughout the day, and since no news is good news, one or two unquenchable spirits in his troop continued to hope that he would put in a dramatic appearance just in the nick of time, with the report of a sensational discovery—the tracks of a bear or a wild cat, for instance. It is significant that they would have been quite ready to believe him, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Nick," said Ralph. "You missed him because you did not shoot straight, and you did not catch him because you did not go fast enough. A lawyer ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... fellow, it was fifteen times worse for you than for us! A most uncomfortable position; I congratulate you a hundred times. Just in the nick of time, too. In a month or so there would have ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... he cried. "By all that is wonderful it is little Nick! Remember you? Why, we played soldiers together when we were children. ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... Lizzie how matters stood. She kept what she called a bookseller's shop as well as the post-office; but the supply of books corresponded exactly to the lack of demand for them, and her chief trade was in nick-nacks, from marbles and money-boxes up to concertinas. If he found the post-mistress in an amiable mood, which was only now and then, the caller led up craftily to the object of his visit. Having discussed the weather and the potato-disease, he explained that his sister ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... elections and organizing state governments in the customary form. The President was earnest, not to say pertinacious, in urging forward these movements. On September 11, 1863, immediately after the battle of Chattanooga, he wrote to Andrew Johnson that it was "the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal state government" in Tennessee; and he suggested that, as touching this same question of "time when," it was worth while to "remember that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do." He warned ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... endurance, and could keep at work or play long after others were tired. He was a famous ball player, and distinguished himself at the green corn dances. There he drank without flinching such large draughts of the bitter "black drink" that he was nick-named by some "Asseola," which means ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... Of course she'll be examined, and Williams will do it in style. I shall slip out from our court to hear him, if I can hit the nick of time." ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "Nick Hargus is one of the most persistent offenders, and we might as well dispose of him first, since you've met the old wretch and know what he's like on the outside," she explained. "Hargus was in the cattle ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... it is some mistake;" the manager spoke most suavely. "But certainly I did wish to speak to madame. I wished to ask her whether she was satisfied with her apartment. I find that the rooms she has generally occupied have fallen vacant, in the nick of time. Perhaps madame would like to look at them, ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... "Just in the nick of time, Martha," said Thinkright, coming forward and shaking hands. "We've a beauty ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... trees. Even though the hounds kept nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougar reached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in, and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabled Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Upon examination, it was discovered the cougar had been half-blinded by the fine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he had made ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... life. On Mr. Verdant Green it had such an overwhelming effect that when his scout, Filcher, entered the room he found his master looking very red about the eyes, and furiously wiping the large spectacles from which his nick-name, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... transformed us at once from rather fashionable young men into a set of forlorn-looking beggars. Each laughed at the appearance of the other, unconscious of his own transformation; but Bob, with more truth than politeness, informed us that we all 'looked like the Old Nick;' whence it appeared that in Bob's opinion the Enemy is usually sorely afflicted with a shabby wardrobe, and that, in the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and he banged from his seat and bounced to the door. "Miss West! the very woman in the nick of time. Stay, Miss West, and thank your stars; here's an old friend come a long way to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the world's stage "just in the nick of time," and almost immediately had to begin hewing out a path for himself. He was born in the workshop, as was Mozart, and learned music simultaneously with speaking. Stirring times they were in which he first saw the light, and so indeed continued with ever-increasing intensity, ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... brute, so I was none the worse save for a good fright. It was high time to kill him, for he began charging at the beaters, and threatened to make it lively for us; and if Count Metternich had not, in the nick of time, sent a bullet into him, I doubt whether I should be writing this little account to you at ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... the puissant army of Beelzebub been approaching, their terror could not have been greater. Yet fear kept many from escaping, while they knew not which way to run for safety. Rigby in the nick of time galloped up to this awful and hostile appearance, crying out to his troops that he would soon demolish the bugbear. This saying encouraged some of the runaways, who followed him to the combat. Approaching ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and then her gratitude, need hardly be described,—nor the astonishment of the husband, which by no means decreased on reflection, at the opportune re-appearance in the nick of time of the man whom three minutes before the attack he had left in the act of going ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Why walks Nick Flimsey like a malcontent! Is it because his money all is spent? No, but because the dingthrift now is poor, And knows not where i' th' ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... kids," said one of the scoutmasters. "We've got the cup but we had to wait a couple of hours for it. The merchants in the great metropolis of Bridgeboro are so slow that a turtle would be arrested for speeding there. Poke up the fire, Nick, we're cold, and I'll tell you all about our adventures. We've made ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... aiming at the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs; and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... own. But then their experiences were so much wider and more varied in that old charmed, sunny, fairy life; the knot of their difficulties was so readily cut, by a simple reference to some Fortunatus' purse, or the arrival in the very nick of time of some friendly fairy. Madelon did not draw the parallel quite far enough, or it might have occurred to her that benevolence did not become wholly extinct with the disappearance of fairies, and that friendly interference is not quite ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the nick of time the Liberal Administration fell, and Lord Salisbury's Cabinet reversed their decision. It is interesting, in reading the Blue Books on Indian questions, to watch the emotions of party principles, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... trying to hit that mark so far away?" grumbled Bristles; which expression of defeat was something strange to hear from his lips, because the owner of the shock of heavy hair that stood upright, and had gained him such a peculiar nick-name, was as a rule very stubborn, and ready to stick to the ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... in a tight fix," answered Dick, with a shiver. "You came in the nick of time, and I owe you ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... once. He laid aside his austerity, and was no longer a butler but a good-looking chap of thirty-five who had the "very Old Nick" in him. It was the sort of kiss that has nothing in common with mistletoe—the sort that DOES lead to future complications. It proved something to Melissa, and she uttered a little sigh of happiness. Mr. Diggs kissed her because he was in ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... herself, "you're going to hurt me,—don't sir, it hurts," all in a groggy tone and in one breath. I inserted a finger between the lips of her quim, and tried gently to put it up, but felt an impediment. She had never been opened by man. I then put my prick carefully in the nick, and gave the gentlest possible movement (as far as I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... faint, And his halo shone with redoubled light. 'Hallo, I fear You're trespassing here!' Said St Cuthman, 'To me it is perfectly clear, If you talk of the devil, he's sure to appear!' 'With my spade and my pick I am come,' said old Nick, 'To prove you've no power o'er a demon like me. I'll show you my power— Ere the first morning hour Thro' the Downs, over Poynings, shall roll in the sea.' 'I'll give you long odds,' Cried the Saint, 'by the gods! I'll stake what you please, only say what your wish is.' Said the devil, ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... how he seemed to stumble into the business just in the nick of time. I say, seemed; but, in truth, he had been prepared for success in it by a long course of experience and training. He was a poor widow's son, born on the coast of Massachusetts, a few miles from Plymouth Rock; his father having died in early ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... some other relation than that he must ever have to the Anglo-American. The present slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not place himself in the guilt of the man-stealer or of those who had complicity with him; but he stands exactly in that NICK of time and place, in the course of Providence, where wrong, in the transmission of African slavery, ends, and ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... in the matter, Nick Alwyn," returned Marmaduke, sturdily; "if a girl likes me, well; if not, there are too many others in the wide world for a young fellow to break his heart about one. Yet," he added, after a short pause, and with a sigh,—"yet, if thou hast not seen her since she ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the attempt by putting on our "civies" first and then drawing our prisoner's uniform over them. When we got to the mine we took off the uniform and slipped the mining clothes on over the others. We worked all day. Coming up from work in the late afternoon, Nick and I held back until everyone else had gone. We went up alone in the hoist and tore off our mining clothes as we ascended, dropping each piece back into the pit as we ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... now, and I know it, and dad knows it," Nick assured him. "I'm going home! You'd better be glad you are not mixed up in this thing," he said, turning to the third boy. "You are safe awhile yet, you ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... answering questions," Rick said, "but I've got one more. How did you happen to arrive right in the nick ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the nick of time," Dan said; but as we discussed plans Cheon hinted darkly that the Maluka was not a fit and proper person to be entrusted with the care of a woman, and suggested that he should undertake to treat the missus as she should ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... do anything yet half so difficult." So he prepared his fire, and put his gridiron upon it, and lays the salmon fairly and softly upon the gridiron, and then he roasts it, turning it from one side to the other just in the nick of time, before the soft satin skin could be blistered. However, on turning it over the eleventh time—and twelve would have settled the business—he found he had delayed a little bit of time too long in turning it over, and there was a small, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... River blacks, who pronounce it to-day exactly as it is spelled in the great navigator's journal, but they use it now only for the big toe. Either the blacks in Cook's time called the kangaroo 'big toe' for a nick-name, as the American Indians speak of the 'big horn,' or the man who asked the name of the animal was holding it by the hind foot, and got the name of the long toe, the black believing that was the part to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... that he has but eleven cents in his pocket. Of course, he has coppered and won. But why—tell me why, could he not have given me the sentiment, which I had a right to expect from him? He bears the stamp of a bad Kopper; a regular old Nick, and has done that unbecoming thing so often that it is becoming monotonous And General X——— and Mr. K——— are types of a large class who come before me to take acknowledgments and the like, for whom I have no liking; who may as well acknowledge now, severally each for himself, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... third season here," I said, "and I never even heard about any old creek bed. I never heard about Nick's Valley either." ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... comes just in the nick of time. He is well acquainted with this part of the jungle, having lived here all his life, and he offers to guide us to a place where we can get mules to transport ourselves and ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... insulting the "Jacobins," and kept back with no little difficulty by the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public executioner—"Masto Donato" as he was nick-named by the populace—gave vent to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim. Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... because I am a little mad, I suppose," she said, good-humouredly, in answer to Clara's cautiously-worded question as to how she came by so strange a nick-name. "You see, I never do what sane people are expected to do now-a-days. I never wear long trains, (talking of trains, that's the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station—I've something to tell you about that), and I never play ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... audience. Several years ago I published Cloud Boat Stories. Later The Wonderful Land of Up. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago. They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... he brought, And said he feared nought Of the Devil being brewed in his copper: He'd as quickly believe Nick would sit in his sieve, Or dance 'mong the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... imperfect illustrations of this beautiful Romance to the young gentleman in question. As I cannot find, however, that he is known among his friends by any other name than "The Tripe-skewer," which I cannot but consider as a soubriquet, or nick-name; and as I feel that it would be neither respectful nor proper to address him publicly by that title, I have been compelled to forego the pleasure. If this should meet his eye, will he pardon my humble attempt to embellish with the pencil the sweet ideas to which ...
— The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman • Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray
... "It would take three such as thou art to make me captive! Mabel Lyndwood, in your grandfather's name, I command you to come with me, and let Nick Clamp look to himself if ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Nick has more influence with York than I have. He crosses the street when he sees me. I like him about as much as he likes me. He's boss of his own show—his directors cut no ice. Anyway, it's none of my business. I've no excuse for butting in." Her face showed her disappointment. "I'm sorry," ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... unknown woman, who has electrified my imagination and my passions. Is there, perhaps, more safety in meeting her and laying the ghost? Imagination plays us such damnable tricks. She may have a raucous voice, or too sharp a wit; or she may love another by this. I'll ask Nick to ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... sweetness and nobility of Nature, and to live joyously, like birds, in union and communion with God. I am sure, he concludes, that barbarous people that go naked come nearer to Adam, God, and the Angels, in the simplicity of their wealth, than do many among us who partake of what we nick-name civility and mode.[36] The entire work of redemption is, thus, to restore man to himself, to bring him once more to the Tree of Life, to enable him to discover the glory all about him, to reveal to him the real values of things, and to bring to birth within him an immortal love. The ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... families are in the two elevens, mingled with the yeomen and whoever can best do the business. Fallow field and Beckley, without regard to rank, have drawn upon their muscle and science. One of the bold men of Beckley at the wickets is Nick Frim, son of the gamekeeper at Beckley Court; the other is young Tom Copping, son of Squire Copping, of Dox Hall, in the parish of Beckley. Last year, you must know, Fallow field beat. That is why Nick Frim, a renowned out-hitter, good to finish a score brilliantly with a pair of threes, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is no revolution," answered Terry. "War has probably broken out between Chili and some other country—I wonder which. Peru, I expect. And it seems to me, my lad, that we have just arrived in the very nick of time. Here is the chance of our lives, and we shall be foolish if we don't make the ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... sir, as any one would ha' thought," said Peter. "And seeing him like that I thought I'd just go down and fetch myself a cup o' tea; but no sooner was I out o' the room than he must have slipped out and dressed hisself—shamming, you know—and if I hadn't come back in the nick o' time ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... of mind, with the result that officials acquire the methods of those who deal with the mentally unhinged; show themselves prepared for any display of eccentricity. Ever, as in life, you remark the people who arrive too soon, or too late; a few lucky ones come in the very nick of time. The last named are favourites, selected with no obvious reason by Fortune, and greatly envied by their contemporaries; it is usual for them to claim the entire credit to themselves. Apart from these, at the terminal stations where no barriers exist, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... any danger of changing my mind, the good lawyer would have saved me in the nick of time. The extract that follows contains the pith of his letter; and shows how he encouraged me when I stood in sore need of a few ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... believe, were going to murder the old man in the hammock, if we had not come in the nick of time. What have you done ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... him good," Captain Doolan said disdainfully. "I have no patience with a man who is forever working himself to death, riding about the country as if Old Nick were behind him, and never giving himself a minute for diversion of any kind. Faith, I would rather throw myself down a well and have done with it, than work ten times as hard ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... electrically perfect; an imperfect splice may cause considerable trouble. In telegraph and telephone cables the conductors should be of very soft copper, for in stripping the conductor of insulation it is very easy to nick the wire, and if of hard drawn copper open wires ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... all the public press has been induced to represent you as a monster of this description? The answer is easy. For this plain reason: because all those who belong to the public press, the liberal press, have been the agents or the, tools of one or the other of the two great political factions, nick-named Whigs and Tories; because throughout the whole of my political life, I have honestly opposed the peculations, the plunderings, and frauds of the borough-mongers of both those two factions upon the people, upon the earnings of the poor; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the end of the week that Dick Rover came into contact with Tad Sobber, a stocky youth, with a shock of black hair and eyes which were cold and penetrating. Sobber was with a chum named Nick Pell, and both eyed Dick in a calculating ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... these negroes is compared by their neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... my Nick in," murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little side porch and making his plea for admission ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... the height of this particularly mischancy posture of affairs the meddlesome Fates had elected to dispatch Cock-eye Flinks to serve as our deus ex machina. And just as in the comedy the police turn up in the nick of time to fetch Tartuffe to prison, or in the tragedy Friar John manages to be detained on his journey to Mantua and thus bring about that lamentable business in the tomb of the Capulets, so Mr. Flinks now happens inopportunely to arrive upon our ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... high as you can, fellow!" ordered Hal. Just in the nick of time he remembered Captain Foster's instructions, and spoke in English instead of Spanish. But his gesture was eloquent enough for no words ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... our time under two different aspects. The Nixa of the Germans is one of those fascinating and lovely fays whom the ancients termed Naiads; and unless her pride is insulted or her jealousy awakened by an inconstant lover, her temper is generally mild and her actions beneficent. The Old Nick known in England is an equally genuine descendant of the northern sea-god, and possesses a larger portion of his powers and terrors The British sailor, who fears nothing else, confesses his terror for this terrible being, and believes him the author of almost all the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... might presume to come to your assistance. And, as my intervention can be of no use unless it remains secret, I did not hesitate to make my way in here ... without walking through the gate. I came in the nick of time, as you said. Your enemy ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... made as to who was the smart chap in Virginia that did these things. The papers became wary and read Enterprise items twice before clipping them. Clemens turned his attention to other matters to lull suspicion. The great "Dutch Nick Massacre" did not ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thousand papers-at least there were six—so I suppose Russell sent to some one in the city to do it for him; but the whole thing was awfully womanish. The address was in the most correct, copy-book-y handwriting, every point turned just so, every loop according to rule. But it came just in the nick of time, and saved me and your money. Bless your ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... I never seen her a-gwine on myse'f; not that they was any hidin' out 'mongst the Bivinses er the Sanderses—bless you, no! bekaze here's what wa'n't afeared er all the Wornums in the continental State er Georgy, not if they'd 'a mustered out under the lead er ole Nick hisse'f, which I have my doubta if he wa'n't somewheres aroun'. I never seen 'er, but I heern tell er how she was a-cuttin' up. You mayn't think it, but that 'oman taken it on herse'f to call up all the ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Arab's sword again, Ken saw the glitter in his savage eyes, and thought it was all over when, in the very nick of time, a revolver spat and turned the fierce face into ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... highest or the lowest priest had said it, or had done it in God's Name or in his own. They looked on the works and words, and held them up to God's Commandment, no matter whether big John or little Nick said it, or whether they had done it in God's Name or in man's. And for this they had to die, and of such dying there would be much more to say in our time, for things are much worse now. But Christ and St. Peter and Paul must cover all this with their holy names, so that no more infamous cover ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... with my whole body alongside my Leader, and turned not mine eyes from their look, which was not good. They lowered their forks, and, "Wilt thou that I touch him on the rump?" said one to the other, and they answered, "Yes, see thou nick it for him." But that demon who was holding speech with my Leader turned very quickly and ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... is laid, never to rise again' — Insensible of this check, she proceeded: 'Well, to be sure, you looked and talked so like a real ghost; and then the cock crowed so natural. I wonder how you could teach him to crow so exact, in the very nick of time; but, I suppose, he's game — An't he game, Mr Gwynn?' 'Dunghill, madam.' — 'Well, dunghill, or not dunghill, he has got such a clear counter-tenor, that I wish I had such another at Brambleton-hall, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the meet was; well, they drew Ballytowngal, and found no fox there. It was not expected, and nothing happened there. The people did not come into old Nick Bodkin's demesne, but we had heard by the time that we were there that we should come across a lot of Landleaguers at Moytubber. There they were as thick as bees round the covert, and there was one man who had the impudence to tell Tom Daly that draw where he might, he would draw in vain ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... queer-looking couple could possibly be,— Asking each other in whispers, whether, It wasn't the likeliest thing that she, Was a Western Actress, and he an Editor; And some were terribly frightened, because They couldn't help thinking there certainly was, The Old Nick to pay, and that ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... pretended speculation involved in the third receivership which was operated by Nucingen in 1826. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1833 M. du Tillet advised Nathan, then financially stranded, to apply to Gigonnet, the object being to involve Nathan. [A Daughter of Eve.] The nick-name of Gigonnet was applied to Bidault on account of a feverish, involuntary contraction of a leg ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... spite of her, and now send it to you, hopping you will put a letter in the newspaper of Lundon cleering the karacter of me and my wiffe Peggy, and my Inn of the Golden Arms. As for Miss Jeny ye may mak her as black as auld nick, for over and above Peggies half pund of tea, and your Bowa, Jeny (I hae good reason to believe) is no better than she should be. I am, Madum, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... satisfactory to learn that the ladle itself, the only substantial relic of this curious custom, is, in all probability preserved at the present time. A footnote in W. McDowall's valuable "History of Dumfries," says: "The Dumfries hangman's ladle is still to be seen we believe among other 'auld nick-nackets' at Abbotsford." It was for many years lost sight of, till in 1818, Mr. Joseph Train, the zealous antiquary, hunted it out, and, all rusty as it was, sent it as a ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... knows," said her brother. "I lost count—and lost some of the knives, too. I've an idea Bill Beresford picked up one I dropped—the one Lance Western gave me; it's got a tortoise-shell handle, and a nick out of the big blade—and gave it to me ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... after what had been said to her. Lizzie was sure that, a month since, her cousin would have yielded himself to her willingly, if he could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an enemy rather than ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... dear Felix,—I have just received your note; it came in the nick of time, for I was, as they say, in a fury with you. You tell me that you were guilty of that abuse of confidence (about which I intended to write you a piece of my mind) in order to give a knock-down blow ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... grasped the rigging with one hand, and leaning forward as far as possible stood with the hook poised. At first it seemed as though the object would escape them, but a touch of the helm in the nick of time just enabled the mate to reach. The hook caught in the jacket, and with great care he gradually shortened it, and drew the body close to ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... exertion. As they fought, the raccoons drew nearer and nearer to the porcupine, who did not offer to move. Another lurch would undoubtedly have brought them into contact with his bristling quills had they not in the nick of time discovered their danger. Instantly they separated and leaped back. The leap brought them to the slippery mud at the edge of the stream and the next moment both ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... the higher demands of imaginative prose—witness his Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow—but his forte is in miniature, and the orthodox dimensions of three volumes post-octavo would suit him almost as ill as would the Athenian vesture of Nick Bottom the spruce proportions of royal Oberon: Haliburton is inimitable in his own line of things; his measure of wit and humour—qualities unknown, or nearly so, to Cooper—is 'pressed down, and shaken together, and running over;' but his 'mission' and Cooper's in the tale-telling ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... was a nick name given to the western peasantry of Scotland, from then using the words frequently in driving strings of horses. Hence, as connected with Calvinistical principles in religion, and republican doctrines in policy, it was given as a term of reproach ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "By Jove! how lucky, Miss Daisy. You've come in the nick of time. Just finished our pool. Now you and Mrs. Halton shall play a single and I shall mark ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... professor of gymnastics. He has seen years of army service, and is thoroughly imbued with the military spirit. The boys are more afraid of him than of the president and entire board of trustees,—as afraid as they would be of old Nick, himself, in ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... my mouth, I must go through the married lines on my way to quarters an' I must stay talkin' to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av a girl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy, the wife of Nick Sheehy, the canteen-sergint—the Black Curse av Shielygh be on the whole brood that are ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the right thing to say a fortnight after the opportunity, but this once the name Berkeley came to me in the nick of time, and I evened my score with its possessor for many a dirty trick he had put upon me. To suspect was to condemn with Charles, and I knew that if he heard me call Berkeley's name, that consummate villain would suffer ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... thickly overgrown with rushes and reedy grass, which furnish cover for thousands of ducks, geese, and wild swans. We reached, before night, a native village called Harchina (har'-chin-ah) and sent at once for a celebrated Russian guide by the name of Nicolai Bragan (nick-o-lai' brag'-on) whom we hoped to induce to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... mate, "the Rock-scorpions are right. They have pounced upon the derelict like wolves. I almost wish I was there to see the effect when they realize they have been fooled, and they find that that craft is loaded with stones. It was just done in the nick of time; they might have compelled ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... ridiculed the Partition Treaty with exquisite humour and ingenuity. Everybody must remember his description of the paroxysm of rage into which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hearing that his runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier John Bull, and his old enemy Lewis Baboon, had come with quadrants, poles, and inkhorns, to survey his estate, and to draw his will for him. Lord Mahon speaks of the arrangement with grave severity. He calls it "an iniquitous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... And considering how bold he was the day I was out with him, I put it down that he must have had a few drinks when he took me for a— Well, I never saw him, but how else can you account for it? Drink will make a man drive like old Nick, and get away with it, too, sometimes, though the stuff'll get 'em sooner or later. But that's how I ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... corrosion to which they are subject; and the nuts should be made large, and should be square, so that they may be effectually tightened up, even though their corners be worn away by corrosion. It is a good plan to give the thread of the paddle bolts a nick with a chisel, after the nut has been screwed up, which will prevent the nut from turning back. Paddle floats, when consisting of more than one board, should be bolted together edgeways, by means of bolts running through their whole breadth. The floats should ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... Nick felt almost good-humoredly buoyant after his year's holiday as a college boy. About a second after leaving Earth he slowed his traveling speed down to the medium velocity of light by shifting from ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... more apparent became the gravity of his responsibility. Why had he yielded to her reckless whim? Only this morning he had been thanking his lucky stars that he was well rid of women of the world for a month at least. And now—Shades of Pluto! He had one hanging around his nick more securely than any millstone. And this one—Hermia Challoner, an enthusiast without a mission—a feminine abnormity, half child, half oracle, wholly irresponsible and yet, by the same token, wholly ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... "you will forgive me, sir, I know; but I must beg of you for the sake of the ladies to give up this out-of-the-way place, and come close, up to the settlement. We feel that we cannot leave you out here unprotected. Think of what would have happened if we had not arrived in the nick of time." ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... him," she resumed. "He is not young; he is not handsome; he is not funny. I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only known where to find shelter for the night, I'd soon have sent him to the old Nick,—him and his brilliant position. But, not having enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn't the time to put on any airs. So I tell him that I accept. He goes for a cab; we get into it; and he brings me right ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... saving process, mother. I've pretty often declared in my own mind that Dorette and you came along just in the nick ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... good sense utterly. Still it is possible for even the wisest of women to lose her judgment at times. But as for my trusty steward Thomas Salthouse, the steadiest man I have ever had in my employ, if even old Nick himself has managed to bewitch him, he must be a cleverer ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... well as I was able, recover my abstracted sheet with the aid of the rod. It took a long time, and laid me open to dire penalties for disturbing the public peace. But it had to be done, and fortunately for me a row at the other end of the room called the monitor away in the nick ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... see you, Nick," said the fellow who had foretold the speedy apprehension of the letter-writer, as already related. "Cursed fool to come to London so soon. Knew you would be nabbed. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various |
